Chocolate Chip Rescue
Location: Cape Elizabeth, Maine Date: November 27, 1989 Story On the morning of November 27, 1989, in Cape Elizabeth, Maine, sixteen-year-old Katie Martin went over to her best friend Sarah Michaels' house. "It was the day after Thanksgiving and we were going to go Christmas shopping," said Sarah. Her mother, Catherine, had baked chocolate chip cookies the day before and she and Katie decided to each have one. Unaware that there were walnuts in them, Katie took two bites out of hers and immediately asked Sarah what was in them. "I said, 'Just normal type things,'" said Sarah. The girls planned to go Christmas shopping with two other friends at a mall in South Portland six miles away. Katie sat in the front seat, Lori pulled out, and started driving the three girls to the mall. "Katie had asked to go to the drug store to get some asthma medicine and she went in," said Sarah. Katie went into the store and bought some allergy pills. "I have asthma too and I noticed her wheezing. She definitely wasn't as talkative or chatty as she normally is," said Sarah. As Lori continued driving, Katie rolled down the car window and began to put her hand up towards her mouth. "We just thought that she wanted some air and I just figured out that she might've had the flu or something, nothing major. Right before we got off the ramp, she started to throw up," said Lori. Sarah asked Katie if she was okay. "She said, 'Yes but I am wheezing and I think it was something in the cookie,'" said Sarah. Katie sat up straight, but had trouble breathing. She held her throat and told her friends to take her to the police station, and that she wasn't going to make it to the mall because this was an emergency. She felt her throat closing up and couldn't breathe. "I was very worried and scared. Something was different. This wasn't a normal asthma attack," said Sarah. She looked at Katie's nails and saw that they were blue. "I had never been to the police station. I knew it was on one of two roads, and I just happened to pick the wrong one," said Lori. Sarah and the two other girls planned on what to do when they got to the police station. Allison decided to call Katie's mother, Sally Martin, and asked Sarah to run in quick and get the police. Sarah and Lori ran into the police station and quickly explained the problem to the first officer she met. Officer Buddy Pelatere was first on the scene while his partner, Detective Peter McVain, called the ambulance. "People that have respiratory problems; the more they gasp for air, the less oxygen they get. Her respirations started getting shallower and shallower and then she stopped breathing," said Officer Pelatere. After calling the ambulance, McVain rushed out to help. Katie had stopped breathing and fainted into Officer Pelatere's arms. From less than two miles away, a South Portland ambulance was dispatched to the scene. "I started crying because she was my best friend and she is so young and has much more to see," said Sarah. EMT Kevin Geemond arrived within minutes. "She wasn't breathing and looked like a sack of potatoes. I took out the respirator kit and immediately started bagging her but her throat was swollen and had closed up," said Geemond. They immediately put her in the ambulance and rushed her to the hospital. Without oxygen, she could suffer permanent brain damage within six minutes. At Maine Medical Center, Katie was put under the care of Dr. Rick Baker. "She was completely unresponsive on arrival. We were very concerned that she was going to go into full respiratory arrest," said Dr. Baker. Sally immediately headed to the hospital after she got Allison's call from the police station. "I thought the girls might've just overreacted. Katie has had allergies and asthma ever since she was a tiny baby," said Sally. She walked through the door and asked a nurse where Katie was. The nurse said that she was in the trauma unit, that the doctors and nurses were working on her, and that they were doing the best they could. She then started breathing, moving, and opened her eyes. The doctors sat her up and she got to see Sally. "I went over to her and held her hand which was ice cold and she looked at me," said Sally. "She was an angel because I thought I was dead," said Katie. "I said to her, in this mother/teacher tone, 'Katie! It's your mother! You're fine, you're going to be all right now!,'" remembers Sally. Katie survived with no permanent injuries and has been tested for other allergies. Sally and her husband, Al, later questioned her friends to discover what had caused her near fatal allergic reaction. "Mr. Martin asked, 'Did she eat any nuts?' and that's when I said, 'Yeah, there were walnuts in the cookies.' And he said, 'That's what it was.' It never occurred to me that an allergy could be that bad," said Sarah. "I think all of us learned to appreciate life a little more. It made us stronger as friends," said Allison. Katie now wears a medical alert tag to call in case of an emergency. Although more than a year has passed, Al can never forget. "I'm really a lucky guy. I came so close to losing my daughter and the sense of her three young friends. Difference between Katie being here and her not being here," said Al. "You've got to live life to what it is," concluded Katie. Category:1989 Category:Maine Category:Anaphylactic Shock Category:Holiday Category:Christmas